Validation of an abbreviated scale to evaluate management in health organizations

Introduction: Management in healthcare organizations enables the competitive performance of healthcare institutions; therefore, it requires constant monitoring with valid and reliable instruments. Objective: To validate a scale to evaluate management in health care organizations, according to the perception of health care workers. Methods: Instrumental study, in which 302 health workers from hospitals and primary care centers in a health region of Peru participated. The process included content validation by expert judgment and pilot testing. construct validity was assessed by exploratory factor analysis and fit was assessed by confirmatory factor analysis, which included different estimation methods. Discriminant, predictive and reliability validity were analyzed. Results: A short version of 8 items grouped in a single general factor was obtained, which explained 55.88% of the total variance; the model has adequate goodness-of-fit indices independently of the estimation method used. The variability indexes of the items were excellent; the discriminative and predictive validity were satisfactory. The internal consistency with McDonald's omega (ω= 0.892), Cronbach's alpha (α= 0.892) and Gutmann (λ6= 0.887), revealed optimal reliability values. Conclusions: The scale for evaluating management in healthcare organizations has adequate metric properties.